Hello and welcome to the MTM Vegas Podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host, joined as always
by Mark Osterman. We have a great show for you. As a reminder, you can watch this entire
show along with all the visuals that go with it at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories.
We record two shows a week and combine them into this podcast for your listening enjoyment.
And on this week's show we have a lot to discuss including Bellagios, $110 million investment
in the spot tower. They are redoing the room similar to what they did in the main tower,
although there is one big difference. We also talk about Link removing their table games
while at the same time announcing a new Spiegel World show. I tell you what it's like in
Resorts World Bimini. We discuss the drama at the MSG sphere as the company looks to split
up its assets because of the cost overruns building the place. We also discuss the beginning
of construction at Rio. The All Net Arena is having funding issues, not a big surprise
there. And Mark Walbert wants to turn Las Vegas into Hollywood 2.0. All of that coming up plus
more. As a reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts and
videos at mtmvegas.com. Thanks so much for listening. Let's hit it.
So Mark, we're getting some details of what's going into that new Project 63 shopping center
in City Center. It's right on the corner of Harmon and Las Vegas Boulevard. It's not
owned by MGM, but it's basically that new mall that's going in there, big screens. We
knew there was going to be a CVS. Now we learn that one of their anchor tenants is going
to be Ross. So Ross shopping, you can get those nice clothes there at City Center coming
soon. Is that like the clothing version of those $10 stores you see everywhere? Vegas?
There's going to be a fat Tuesdays as well. So you get your slushy drinks. I mean, the
only thing Vegas needed more of than screens was more daiquiris, tall daiquiris. If they
could sell them everywhere, that's, you know, everybody wants some CVS, which would be convenient
actually to a lot of people staying in City Center. So they'll probably actually like that.
But the rest is not quite what people expected, I'm sure. In all seriousness, the mall does
look really good. The renderings and as it's coming along, so it's going to be opening
soon, but maybe they're struggling to find people. Ross is a curious one, especially
because it's right across the street at Showcase Mall, but a little funny way to start the show,
but we wish them well. People do hate walking up the escalators when they're broken.
This is to get people on both sides of the street, I guess.
Mark famously, you stayed at the Bellagio Spa Tower last year, I think, and we did a video
about it. So it's on the channel. People want to see and you had like sewage backing
up into your bathtub, a sign that probably needed a renovation. And Bellagio did renovate
all of their standard rooms in their main tower a couple years ago. They have said now
that they're going to start renovations on the spa tower. The rooms look very similar
to what you see in the main tower, almost exactly the same. With one big exception, the
bathroom is keeping the tub. The tub is going nowhere. I wonder if it was bad.
I'm going to fix the sewage problem though. You know they're not putting in new plumbing.
So it's just going to be a new tub with the same issues. I imagine, you know, it was not
my favorite stay in that tower is so far away from everything. It takes forever to get back
there, which is kind of annoying. So it is nice that when you get back there, you'll
have a new modern room. It looks beautiful. You know, they still have the iHome docks.
Remember those from like 2006 or seven or whatever? They have the big port for your iPhone, which
I thought was hilarious that they still had those in there. But yeah, if they leave the
tubs, I don't see that that's going to, you know, correct the issue of backing up, which
isn't just something I've had. A lot of people had that problem. Now I remember stating the
spa tower. So I'm not 100% familiar with those rooms, but I believe they're very similar to
the ones in the main tower. And the reason that they got rid of the tub in the first place
was because there was no closet in the room. And they had these big pieces of furniture
to kind of act as a closet. And they wanted to get rid of those to make them more spacious.
So I don't know what they're doing now because the shower is where the new closet was in
the room and then where the tub was where they put the shower in the main tower. So I'm guessing
maybe they're giving up on the whole closet thing. People in the comments, maybe there
is a small difference between the rooms. I can't really tell, but I've never stayed in
one of those rooms in the spa tower. But like I said, the decor looks almost exactly the
same. And I really like it. We've talked about how those rooms are very nice, inspired by
Lake Como and really bright modern colors. Now one other thing is the suites in Bellagio
have not been renovated, even in the main tower. And I stayed there about a year and a half
ago. I'll throw up some video, very kind of old school Italian.
Grown up, throw it up, people. One of these days I'm actually going to think about it
before I say it. I really think I'm just saying it to queue you up. But really, yeah, I do
it. But they did announce that the suites are going to get renovated by 2024. And as far
as the regular rooms in the spa tower, those are going to come online starting this July
and they'll be finished by this October. So by next year, you're going to have all the
suites in rooms renovated at Bellagio. And the suites really, like I said, they're very
like old school European, which is kind of cool, but kind of dated too. So I'm looking
forward to seeing what they do with those big suites up on the top floors of the Bellagio.
But $110 million going into this thing, more than the 30 million at Circus Circus for paint.
So maybe we'll get something really good. Bellagio needs to keep up because Cosmo really
is the crown jewel of MGM now. And Bellagio trying to just keep up with the Joneses.
One other Bellagio thing, Mark, is they are starting to build a bridge on that connector
from Vadara to Bellagio that will connect Cosmo into the tram system, which is really
good. Our friend John Ryan, let me know that. He's sent me some pictures of that as well.
So nice way that they're connecting everything together.
Yeah, that will be nice getting around because it does take forever. Even though the properties
are pretty close together, it does take a while to get around them and to walk between
them. So that's good. And I will say like the Bellagio rooms, even the spa tower room,
they're very spacious. So that's they have that going forward already. And I've never
been one to care about if there's a closet or not. You know, if you have a wardrobe to
hang this stuff up, what does it really matter? So I prefer to have a tub if it, you know,
isn't sewage filled. So I'm glad that they're keeping that for the people that want it and
it's important for. I'm surprised that the suites, they waited this long to do it. You
would think that with your high rollers and everything and the prices that people pay
for those that that would have been the first thing you hit. So it's good to see those getting
done too. Yeah, for sure. Let us know in the comments what you guys think about these
rooms and these new renderings that we showed you. We'd love to hear it. Now, Spiegel World
has made a huge, you know, presence in Las Vegas. They have absence and then they have
opium at a Cosmo along with their super difficult restaurants. And even we've talked about a
few months ago that they're going to buy a town not far from Las Vegas and turn into
like a circus village, which is really cool. But a few years ago, they inked a deal with
Caesar's entertainment to start developing concepts for shows. And I guess we're getting
one over at link in the former Imperial Palace sports book space. It's going to be a show
called disco show. It's kind of hard to kind of wrap my mind around this, but they said
they're not going to be seats. It involves everybody dancing and learning dancing through
it. Another one of those sort of next gen kind of futuristic kind of takes, not futuristic,
but certainly not old school takes on entertainment. They're also going to build a restaurant there.
40 million dollars they're spending on this place. I think Spiegel World really is the
future of Las Vegas entertainment or these types of shows. I think it sounds really good.
It's going to come online 2024. So we got a bit to wait, but they got the news out there
this week. Did you notice they had like a sphere type of thing? They're like, we're
going to have screens all over the inside everywhere to make it all immersive like that
you're there and everything. And this kind of goes along with, you know, Tony's and Tina's
wedding where you're part of the show, but not, but you know, you're in it and you're
going to see things going on while you're dancing and having fun. So it sounds really
unique. Probably not something I would go to because, you know, disco dancing isn't
my thing. But if I was into dancing or club atmosphere, I think this would be a really
cool thing to check out in something different, a new perspective. The diner sounds like it
will be really cool too. So it definitely will check that out.
Yeah, they described it as an LED box with screens covering the walls and floors to make
the show feel like a party. More screens. That's the Vegas of the future screens everywhere.
We'll talk about the sphere later in the show because there's some really interesting things
happening with it. The MGM's we got to get it right. Yeah, the MGM, the future MGM
sphere. It could be with the with everything that's happening with that company and we'll
talk about it in just a bit. But I did want to talk about resource world Bimini. So I
was on a Virgin cruise last week as people who watched the show know because I was recording
from my cabin and I'll start with just talking about the Virgin Voyage's Casino really quick
because I don't think it meant it really warrants talking a lot about it. Almost seems
like an afterthought. Very dark space. Not very big. Even they have like the dance club right
off of it and the showroom. So people are waiting in line. There's no walkways. Not a great casino.
Kind of strange for an adults only cruise line not to have a better casino. But let's move on to
resource world Bimini because this place is really cool. So they have this beach club that they share
with Virgin Voyages. So when the cruise ship is in port, they get to use the beach club the
rest of the time resource world gets to get it. And it's beautiful there. But also they have like
the largest marina in the Bahamas. Really kind of chill place. There's a Hilton hotel plus tons of
villas. And then a fairly small casino. I think 160 slot machines. You know a handful of table
games. I risked my life to get you guys a little bit of footage inside there because
they didn't have no filming signs in there. But I got shut down pretty quickly filming inside there.
The carpet is beautiful too Mark. I really like resource world Bimini. This is my fifth one. I've
been to Manila, San Tosa, Genting Highlands and Vegas of course in this one. So I'm checking
them off the list. But I really like this one. I could see spending a few days there just chilling
out hanging out there. Yeah it looked gorgeous. And it you know it looked like you understood the
theming. You know that's a problem that we see in Vegas where it just kind of feels not. There's
not much of a soul to it. And that felt like a warm drew you in. It's something that you'd want
to hang out at and spend time to go out of your way for. So I think they really knocked out the
park from the pictures I saw of you posting on Twitter and everything. I really like the look of
it. Now where does this rank? Like where would you put your top three of the resource worlds that
you've been to? I was just talking to my wife about this. And the resource world is sort of this
weird brand right? Because they have their one in New York City and then they have a couple more
that they built in New York. And these are really smaller casinos. And then the one in Bimini is
pretty small right? But it has more of a resort atmosphere because it has the marina, the Hilton
Hotel and everything. And then you have like the ones in Vegas and Genting Highlands. These are like
of a different scale. Centosa in Singapore. They have a universal studios as part of it. So I would
say that those are different scale. But I think Centosa, the one in Singapore is my favorite of
all of them. Because it has a hard rock hotel, several other hotels, aquarium, you know, theme park,
really cool casinos. It's just the real deal. It's like a the best kind of integrated resort
or one of the best integrated resorts in the world. So I would say that one, you know, I like the one
in Las Vegas, but you know, how I feel about the hotels there. I do fear that the what in Bimini is
just sort of a generic, you know, Hilton. But you know, I guess that's a little different being there.
That's what they like to do. Generic Hilton next to resource. I mean, the villas looked great though.
They have these houses and you know, Bimini is this long skinny island. It's the closest
island basically to the US. So it's only like 42 miles. So this is the closest casino or offshore
casino to the US. And we saw people like pulling up their, you know, small yachts and spending the
weekend there and, you know, parking there. And so it's it's that type of place. But yeah,
really loved it and it's beautiful. So if you have a chance to go there, if you go on a virgin voyage,
you will no doubt stop there for the beach club. Check out the casino as well. They have shuttles
that run all around the property so you can get around without too much. And it's fairly big and
stretched out. So like I said, yeah, the place is beautiful. So no doubt about that. They did a
good job there. Although there's a lot of complaints that people aren't disclosed when you're staying
there because you can't use the beach club on the days that the ships are in port. So they get
really pissed about that. If you're going there, you know, make sure to pay attention when the
ships are in port so that you kind of avoid that. So you can use the beach club, which is spectacular,
has pools. It's a beautiful facility, the beach club. So yeah, I could see being upset if you didn't
know that you weren't going to get to use it. So that's it. I'm not going to talk too much about
Virgin Voyages. I liked it. The casino felt like an afterthought. Now, Mark, did you see this
survey that went out by this company called Price Listo, where they analyze what's the cheapest
city in the US to have a night out and Las Vegas ranked number one, the cheapest place,
you know, the cheapest place. And mainly because of our cheap hotels during the week, I think.
Yeah, I think that definitely swayed it. Vegas is way because, you know, drinks and food.
And it all depends. If you're going to a local place, it's, you know, something different than
if you're going on the stripper or, you know, in the tourist area. But the fact that they even
included hotels in this, you know, you think it would be more of a locals type of place where
you're not staying in a hotel. So that definitely changes things. But, you know, San Francisco was
what like four or five on that list. And I can't imagine their hotels being all that cheap and
nothing is super cheap in San Francisco. So I find this whole list to be a little bit janky.
Yeah, and the way they define a night out is it includes the average price of a cocktail,
a three mile cab ride, a bottle of wine and a pint of beer. And then also included is a price
for a one night stay in a budget hotel in the city on these nights outs. Nobody eats. Yeah,
they don't eat. But also like the so the median the budget hotel rate $62. So obviously they
took off peak or something. That's great. It says cocktail $20. But then it says one bottle of red
table wine, good quality $14. Where are they getting this $14 bottle of wine?
Quality in any place in Las Vegas. Yeah, and I think fast food was the only food in there. And
they're like $9 happy meal at McDonald's like, okay, you're gonna go have your $14 bottle of high
end wine and then go eat some McD make a D's for dinner. Yeah, how do you get a cocktail for 20 bucks
but a bottle a whole bottle of wine for 14 ridiculous. Yeah, this was yeah, I mean, obviously these
they do it so people will talk about them. But it's interesting to talk about the most expensive
city San Diego then Charlotte then Austin Memphis and Columbus coming in there. So yeah, a lot of
the big cities are cheaper for some reason. Maybe because they have more hotel rooms. The whole is
terrible. Yeah, yeah. All right, so let's move to downtown Henderson really quick. I just wanted
to show people I was there a little over a week ago right before I went on my cruise. And this is
what it looks like where they're building that new hotel attached to the past casino the Atwell
Suites. So this is gonna be the first hotel in downtown Henderson. Water Street really coming along.
So we'll continue to monitor this but it's kind of gonna be interesting to see this rise out of the
parking lot that used to be there. And a lot to do there a lot of restaurants coming in that new
mixed use condo project across the street with new retail and people you know moving in living there
is almost finished as well. So the revitalization of Water Street continuing and it's good to see
that. Not a lot to say right now. Just thought I would show you guys. So let's talk about the
sphere mark because first off we saw the first like major testing of this thing where you saw
the whole thing lit up and let's start there. It looks incredible. It looks incredible, right?
I swear when you when I first saw that and you shared it, I thought somebody used like paint on
their computer and just like colored it in with paint because that's what the picture looks like.
And I'm sure this phone can't pick up you know lights that well but it just it's crazy how
unreal it looks even though it is real. Yeah it's super bright. Now modern smartphones do sort of
like punch up colors so maybe the colors weren't that vibrant but yeah it looked it looked great.
Now what's not great is the mess that is going on with Madison Square Garden or MSG Entertainment.
I think the takeaway here and we'll talk about this. They're going to split the company into the
board has approved that. So basically there will be a company called Sphere Entertainment Co.
And that's going to operate the Sphere in Las Vegas, Tau Hospitality Group, and MSG Network which is
what airs like the Knicks games and the Rangers games. And then the other one's going to be the
Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp which is going to have their entertainment business of
Rina licensing and the things like the Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, stuff like
that. So they're splitting the company into and the main reason for this is because the sphere has
been such a boondoggle as far as cost goes. This is like a dream that James Dolan had that if you
really look at it in hindsight this never should have been built and I think it's great for Las Vegas
that it was but it's been a huge you know tax on this company and there's also lawsuits saying that
when he bought the MSG Entertainment Networks for almost a billion dollars a few years ago
he kind of didn't give the proper evaluation to the shareholders because he was hiding the
cost of the sphere so there's lawsuits these are all alleged things that happened they have not
admitted fault or that they did this but basically a lot of ugliness and MSG and we'll see but it
kind of seems splitting the company are they just like get offloading the debt so that they can
file bankruptcy on this new sphere company. What do you think? Yes I thought when they were going to
break it away that they would just be the sphere and not bring you know the media and everything
else along with it because you're kind of tanking those companies down too but maybe the garden and
all that stuff is like the profitable end so they're just keeping that profitable and they're grabbing
all the bad investments and bad companies and putting it into one pot and maybe that's where
it's going I don't know but you know a shady guy doing shady things does not surprise me
hopefully it all comes too and I will say back to the lit up sphere somebody posted on Twitter and
said you know a little bit much for 6 a.m. and that's a good thing that Vegas has the best blackout
curtains in the world because I couldn't imagine having room looking at that with that bright color
coming in in the middle of the night. Yeah it's incredible the whole story is incredible
do we dare call Dolan a visionary though because something like this could never get built unless
you had somebody like that push it through and especially with the cost overruns and everything
and I think with the media coverage we're getting and the hype up for this thing it's going to be
an icon for generation or two at least obviously tech might get dated who knows what those screens
will look like to the i-15 years from now but you know maybe they have to spend money to upgrade
them whatever but this is going to be a thing that people all around the world are looking at
it probably doesn't financially make sense to build it but he did so on one hand I want to give
him credit for continuing this thing and pushing it through but you know there's a lot of ugliness
happening with the company and it'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out but the good news is
it is going to open and that's that's really good I mean we're going to get this icon and
this blinding screen all across the city you know who's going to really make out on all this
mgm when they buy it for 50 cents on the dollar you heard it here first the mgm spear coming
we know that uh that mark is the first to call that one
so mark there's a big shocker here in las vegas the all net arena apparently is having funding
issues according to a county commissioner they may not be able to get funding for this thing
i know it's a big shock to you but if they don't get it by september apparently they lose all of
their permits i mean rumor is they can't afford chris angel's requirements for his new contract
to to perform there so that's the hold up so hopefully they get through chris angel does uh
to a not sold out show with 12 people in the stands after they build this billion dollar arena that
nobody wants to go to on a serious note can we get get this land in somebody else's hands finally so
that somebody could they've been trying to build this arena for like i don't know 10 15 years so
maybe we can finally get them to lose it and somebody else can get it it's a prime piece of real estate
especially with fountain blue opening soon so yeah pipe dreams out the door but i suspect we
don't like we see another round of this i don't know you don't like watching a dump trucks just
driving circles on a dirt pad over and over again we have a lot of updates from around town and
we'll start at rio now we know that dreamscape bought rio and then they announced that they were
partnering with hyatt but that was a couple years ago and to this day cesars entertainment still
managing the property although we know it's going to turn over to dreamscapes sometime in 2023 but
we haven't seen anything and cesars has let this place go to hell i mean it's just it's terrible and
they've just basically run it into the ground and finally we're seeing some signs of hope while
dreamscape has not taken over the old carnival world buffet space has been walled off and apparently
according to vital vegas a food hall is going in there so uh... of course it's not gonna be a food
hall but the carnival world buffet is one of the more famous buffets in las vegas it was really the
first one to bring in those separate food stations it was a massive place back in the day rio even
had a separate seafood buffet which they eventually merged in but buffet culture at rio is always big
an end of an era i suppose but it's good to see some construction some progress at rio yeah you know
we think about like four years ago they eat around the world or whatever it was called buffet of buffet
passes and people love that they'd use their celebration dinner if they could finagle their
way into it because sometimes they'd say you couldn't but people would you know pull that off and
and go around and in rio i think was one of them uh... so it's kind of sad to see but also good to
see some money put into that you know i think uh vital vegas said they're spending like twenty
two thousand dollars just to put up the walls that's probably the most money rio's seen put into it
you know they came in by twenty two thousand dollars worth of pillows so it's good to see them
put some money back into it i wish it wasn't a food hall but at least you know cesars it doesn't
own it anymore so maybe we won't see all the same rehash gordon ramsi
fish and chips and all this stuff that maybe will be new local or something unique compared to other
food halls yeah they might have an issue here right i mean the rest of the property is sort of
dilapidated and they're trying to renovate it into a higher end high end and a very modern property
will a modern food hall with kind of higher end concepts work there until they get everything
else done uh we'll see but it's good to see you know that and it's a good thing that you bring up
that buffet pass because just think about in the last few years how things have changed
so much you know paris's buffet has gone pretty much all the buffets are gone except for
cesars bakan al buffet and uh yeah just a huge change in what los vegas is when it comes to
buffet lovers i remember lots of people love that pass and hit it hard because it gave you what
twenty four hours from when you started so you could yeah strategically time it and you know hit
up time it for dinner one night and then just like pile through it man the good old days
the good old days now you got to pay for each little type of food that you want to get
so there was some other cesars related news at lincoln and honestly i have no idea i've tried
to figure out why this has happened uh a commenter uh left a comment asking us and then i kind of
try to dig into it but most of the table games are all of the table games in that area over by
guys restaurant at lincoln have now been removed and it's just sitting empty there so i don't know if
they're going to replace them with electronic table games more slots or they have some other
plans for that space but just suddenly they ripped out the table games yeah and lincoln's kind of a
weird setup they have like little stations here and there for table games it's not like a good flow
through there and then you have oche's area that has some table games too so it's kind of like a
hodgepodge it feels like and this is kind of like a little weird area so i don't know what they'll do
i hate the virtual or the video table games with the one person and one guy taking a hint can mess
up everybody else's car it's just they're annoying but i could see slot machines or maybe the video
table games something like that and you know we've always known that slots are a better payout for
the casino so i wouldn't be surprised if they just put those in there as well as you don't have to
staff them as much and uh the issues they have with finding dealers and everything else yeah and
it's a good point this is probably their least attractive area for table games they do have more
games in the middle of the casino plus at oche's so uh maybe this just wasn't doing well it was a
weird area to have games anyway it seems like it should be a slot area just being off the walkway
there uh you know right near guys restaurant as you kind of pass through links so we'll see what
they put there but no news on that yet we did get news from resorts world that they're going to
already be making a venue change gente palace is their flagship chinese restaurant and uh it's
a beautiful high-end facility and there's a lounge attached to it gente palace lounge with like jade
and it's a beautiful lounge hopefully i have some uh video i can throw up for you guys but now they're
going to redo it as a gold monkey starman starman all right i'm never oh my god so now they're going
to change it into the gold and monkey tiki bar starting april 17th and uh it's going to be a tropical
escape providing a modern take on the classic tiki bar concept you're a big tiki bar fan they're
gonna have all the kind of classic drinks plus bowls of like rum punch and all kinds of different
cocktails for people this is right near the hilton lobby if you're looking in resorts world i think
it was already a beautiful space it looks like they're gonna add more monkeys and make it more
tropical it seems weird to have it next to the gente palace restaurant but i'm excited for a tiki
bar on the strip yeah i you know i've walked by there i've never had a drink or anything in there
but it always looked beautiful inside and it kind of gives you that vibe like a dark cooler vibe so
i could see the transition being somewhat easy and tiki bars are amazing i can't believe there's not
more in vaguess you know we've talked about the off the stripped options and there's a couple really
good ones uh super cool but it's nice to have it at a casino you think that there would be
every casino would have a tiki bar uh it's perfect it's kind of weird that it is coming from their
flagship you know restaurant and and this was kind of a lounge attached to it so it's surprising that
they need to change that up already but i'm i'm super excited for it now speaking of bars flight
club vaguess opened at the venetian and we talked about this when they announced it i don't know
six months whatever it was ago basically a dart venue has a carousel bar it looks really good we saw
some pictures this week of it and i got to get over there looks like like another unique venue one that
i want to check out and throw some darts is it is it really a carousel bar if it doesn't spin though i
mean can you can you go it looks amazing but you know we've been to a couple carousel bars that's
been and there's you know there used to be one at what circuit circus used to have it fully functioning
which was kind of cool and uh so we've seen it in New Orleans has an amazing carousel bar so i
would have loved to see that in motion but the dart area looks like the coolest dart area i've
ever seen in the pictures like the setup the board the lighting looks really really cool now i just
had an idea you know circuit circus when it was built used to have a carousel out on the strip a
real carousel and it didn't last all that long but they should build a carousel bar where that
used to be in that empty parking lot they don't use out front build a really nice carousel bar out
there i guarantee you people would be there especially now you're going to have more pedestrian
traffic with fountain blue right there so uh there you go circuit circus free idea it's done yeah
they gotta finish the day it took them took them 20 years to paint the top but they're going to
build out a huge bar it would be amazing it would be i mean that little area and
caesars that was always kind of vacant and has that one bar there something cool there would
would be perfect and you know they just have a random bar sitting there nobody ever goes to all
right and last thing from around town allegiance stadium is getting yet another soccer game from
or match from you know huge teams we know that we missed out on getting a world cup game here because
apparently allegiance stadium was built too narrow just slightly too narrow for fifea standards
but on july 30th manchester united in jeremy's baruisha dortmund and please forgive me if i
mispronounce that are going to play here so another major soccer event we saw us mexico is coming back
this year as well so soccer is coming you know to allegiance stadium even if we won't get a world
cup game yeah and if we if you want i know you watch tedd lasso so we all know pitches can be
different so they should have made it work you know one size isn't the same size but i know there's
minimum standards and all that but this will be a cool event something cool to check out
you know it'll be packed it's a big a big following two big names people will come in from all over
so just another cool sporting event vegas is throwing and and maybe this will lead to a
MLS team who knows yeah it was funny uh one of the people who tweeted it out said called it major
leek soccer which was very confusing uh because you know major leek soccer is the name of our
league here in the united states but it is top level soccer let's put it that way world-class
soccer come up level football football yes so uh big news that a win awakening their new show that
replaced loreve is going dark for two months and we've seen reports that they're not selling tickets
very well i've heard only mixed reviews very few people actually like this show people out there
might not know but my dad worked on the opening crew of loreve he was a diver going under the water
fixing all the hydraulics so i saw loreve back during its preview days and then several times
as they tweaked it all i can say is loreve i fell asleep during the previews it was so bad
and they tweaked it over time made it better it seems like they're having similar issues with
awakening not doing well but it's sort of shocking for them to just close the show for two months
they said beginning april 17th win Las Vegas will temporarily pause performances of awakening to
allow for an extended rehearsal period consistent with the resorts commitment to
excellence and quality win Las Vegas is committed to bringing a superior vision of awakening to
audiences so basically back to the drawing board yeah basically we suck and we're going to try
to do a whole new show and i think that they like you said they had these issues with loreve i would
have loved to see loreve come back it was a popular show great reviews long running i don't know why
you ditch it just because of covid unless you know all those performers went elsewhere and you
weren't going to be able to recreate it so you kind of jumped off of that or maybe
it's the all the water and stuff sitting there i don't know you know messed it up but it's
just crazy to see how much they put into how much money and effort they put in these shows
and how they can bomb and they have to retool it you know they can't just let it slowly go away
because they spent all this money they got to recoup so hopefully it comes back better it wouldn't
be the first time that we see a show kind of revamp itself and come out stronger so hopefully
they pull that off but you know maybe just bring a little rev back let's do it yeah i think they
took out the pool for the most part so i don't know if i can uh that they can do that i think
this is another reinforcement of why we're seeing so many residencies right these are safer shows
bring in a big name headline star create a show around them it's a much safer thing than spending
hundreds millions of dollars developing a show like awakening and we just don't see that in
Las Vegas anymore i guess two shows have debuted really uh mad apple which has the circ name attached
to it in New York New York which by all accounts has been fairly successful and then this one i
just wonder in the future how much investment we're going to get in these unique shows as opposed to
let's just get another headliner like resorts world is done they've been very successful with that
you don't really need to spend the money and it take on all the risk of it yeah agreed i think
that's where it is and you know you'll need somebody that hopefully like an individual owner that loves
these type of shows and is willing to put up the money and in the risk i don't think any of the
corporate like mgm cesars i don't think we're going to see that anytime soon unless it's like a show
from somewhere else that they bring in that's proven to be have a good following uh like a
Broadway type of thing and and they bring that in but and this is kind of why it's surprising
that we don't see a lot of the smaller shows where people take the risks and will be unique and this
gives them an opportunity to to grow something build something you know for a smaller cost so i
we're getting like double-sided here we're we're losing these big moss massive unique shows and
then we've lost the small shows that we're creative and and unique and fun so it's kind of sad you
know this is not on our agenda but i was listening to a podcast with pen Gillette the other day
talking about you know Las Vegas and they're i think 20 years at the Rio in the same showroom
and how they continue to do that how they've kind of made it work for them and he's talking
about all his magician friends in Las Vegas uh you know Matt Franco David Copperfield he goes down
the list of all the magicians in Las Vegas and left one of them off of there but i do wonder
what's Rio if pen and teller will stay there because they've been such a like you know an anchor of
that place and i think what you really have now is shows is you have magic you have big headliners
and you know not much else a few you know search shows and that's really it there's not a lot of
variety there's nothing new i remember when mgm grand opened and they had efx this big you know
technological show that was doing many things that nobody had ever done before i don't think we're
ever going to see that in Las Vegas again because of stuff like this it's just too much
risk but uh yeah do you want to guess which magician he didn't mention
i don't
uh no Chris angel
here you go for all you fans we hadn't talked about him in a while so you get double Chris angel
references was i really the one though was that the one yeah he went down like he then you like
seven or eight shinlim the guy at the the mirage he goes down every magician in Las Vegas and then
yeah he left one off the list because Chris angel is just a movie producer he just has you watch his
videos that's all right and speaking of movies perfect segue mark wallberg has moved to Las Vegas
we know that he's been in the news they recently just launched their second wallbergers location
which i famously as people who watched the show didn't know for a long time that wallberg was owned
by him uh the one at the grand bizarre shops is their highest grossing store in the world but he's
moving to try to bring hollywood 2.0 here he's saying he wants to build a movie studio he's
lobbying governor limbardo trying to get tax you know rebates and things like that to do that
says he wants to create 10 000 jobs for his movie studio alone with high uh with high salaries he
also says he has about 15 or 20 people in his crew that have already moved here that love it here
says cost of living is less they can live in bigger houses nicer neighborhoods so he really
wants to make it hollywood 2.0 but it seems like nevada is going to have to pay for that
yeah i mean it makes a lot of sense it's you know you can drive from from la and hollywood and all
that and and there's options it's not like getting people way out of their comfort zone uh the weather
is pretty good you have a lot of natural scenery that you can work with if you want to do outside
of studio stuff so i see the point you know we did something similar in michigan years ago
where we gave all these credits to bring movies in we wanted to build up this this whole system of
create jobs essentially that would bring the studios back time and time again even after the
subsidies went away that that did not happen so just be cautious when you're giving out money
you know make sure you have it in there that he's going to stay long term because as soon as that
money dried up no more movies were being made around here and anybody that was in the industry
lost their job so it was kind of like a three-year thing where they just hey if we can get our movie
for half the price let's go to michigan and shoot it so that's what happened he still has an
experience his first vegas summer so uh maybe he's gonna take the gene
truth around it yeah go talk to june sentence so it's out so he'll be like never mind i didn't
realize it got that hot in las vegas we had like the coldest march on record here so if you really
didn't know you would think that you know it was just such a cold winter uh so yeah a lot of these
transplants are going to get their first summer they're gonna finally figure it out but it's good
to see you know somebody with his name bringing attention to las vegas trying to bring that industry
here as you point out geographically it makes a lot of sense it's close enough to l.a. if you need
to bring in talent you know it's easy enough for people to get here as opposed to a lot of places
we know a lot of things are filmed in canada and elsewhere because of these types of tax
tax rebates so it's not like they're asking the vata for something that they probably won't get
elsewhere but yeah it's good to see the uh the investment and always nice to see las vegas on
the screen as well yeah i mean it's always cool especially like any movie you see that's filmed in
detroit or whatever i love it it adds a little bit to it so any movie that's filmed in vegas is
always cool and and something that you're like hey i've been there anywhere you've been that you can
see and be like i know that landmark i've eaten at that restaurant or whatever it's always fun so
be kind of cool to see more films made in the area uh so hopefully something good comes of it
and it creates a lot of jobs for people in the area you know we've talked about how they've been
getting priced out of areas and everything like that so hopefully this brings some money back in
for them thank you for listening to this episode of the mtm vegas podcast don't forget to check us
out on youtube youtube.com forward slash miles to memories and mtm vegas.com for all of our vegas
content thanks again for listening talk to you next time